I just published my 2026 Market Outlook: âAI, AI, AIâŠââââItâs Painful to Predict. The grinch stole our 2025 Santa rallyâthat doesnât bode well for 2026âso fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be another bumpy year! Happy New Year! https://t.co/ywJDHp60Hb
Mr. Dhumeâs anti-Modi bias comes through based on the statistics that he quotes on Indiaâs economic performance. The top 3 data he cites are all largely attributable to Trumpâs post-Liberation Day tariff regime starting April 2025 and Trumpâs Iran War starting March 2026:
1. âThe rupee, already among Asiaâs worst-performing currencies in 2025, has lost 11% of its value against the dollar over the past 12 months.â
2. âJust last year, Indian officials trumpeted an International Monetary Fund forecast that India was on the cusp of overtaking Japan as the worldâs fourth-largest economy at market exchange rates. Instead, India has fallen to sixth place, behind the U.K.â
3. âForeign investors have pulled more than $23 billion from Indian equities since the start of the year. Net foreign direct investment in the fiscal year that ended March 31 was a paltry $7.7 billion, down from $28 billion three years earlier.â
While Dhume acknowledges the deleterious effects of the Iran War on Indiaâs economy in the near term, he ignores Trumpâs conscious efforts to hurt India at the expense of Pakistan over the past year, while mouthing platitudes to Modi.
The more important fact is that non-aligned India had been moving closer to the U.S. over the past 25 years and this was setback by Trumpâs actions. Meanwhile, India has moved to expand economic and some defense partnerships with several European, Middle Eastern, and Indo-Pacific nations that will prove fruitful in the coming years.
The EB concludes, âThis means CIA director John Ratcliffe and others will have to give Mr. Pulte a crash course in intelligence analysis, how to make sense of competing evidence, and the implications for national security and American foreign policy.â
Unfortunately, this is the last job in the entire federal government that can afford âlearning on the jobâ and especially in war time! Besides, Congress clearly mandated that the DNI must have the required and necessary experience in the intelligence field. Sadly, and terrifyingly, Mr. Pulte doesnât qualify. One hopes that what the EB suggests, âMr. Trump wanted revenge on the deep state and here it isâ doesnât come at the expense of our national security!
I could probably answer most of the questions that Karl Rove has posed but it would take more than the allotted 1500 characters! Nonetheless, the more important point is that even if the primaries didnât answer the questions that Karl has posed, isnât it his job as an opinion columnist to at least answer some of them? Itâs disappointing when op-ed writers hedge their bets on the tough questions, which is what Karlâs non-answering has done here.
So says the lady who brought us the Iraq War on a faulty premise of WMD! Has it occurred to Condi Rice that a âa weaker, more confusedâ Iranian regime could be a more dangerous and erratic one? As we have already seen in the seesaw post-ceasefire negotiations for the past two months!
Also, Ms. Rice concludes, âBut time is on the side of the U.S. and its allies. Reaching no deal is fine. Reaching a bad deal isnât.â Unfortunately, Trump is not a patient man, so time is not on our side, practically speaking. Trump said the same thing about no deal being better than a bad dealâonly time can show how pretentious and political this assertion most likely is, but again, patience is not a presidential virtue.
Two comments on this editorial from HWJ Jr.:
1. âMr. Bidenâs Justice Department investigated Mr. Biden himself for mishandling intelligence documents.â
Would such an investigation of Mr. Trump happen under Mr. Trumpâs Justice Department?
2. âIn 2024, his narrow victory (115,000 votes in three states would have changed the result) âŠâ
So, Trump didnât win a landslide victory in 2024?
@WSJ With the murder of â60 Minutesâ complete, the new CBS has transitioned into the âConservative Broadcasting System.â Look out Fox, youâve got competition!
@WSJ With the murder of â60 Minutesâ complete, the new CBS has transitioned into the âConservative Broadcasting System.â Look out Fox, youâve got competition!
@WSJ With the murder of â60 Minutesâ complete, the new CBS has transitioned into the âConservative Broadcasting System.â Look out Fox, youâve got competition!
@WSJ With the murder of â60 Minutesâ complete, the new CBS has transitioned into the âConservative Broadcasting System.â Look out Fox, youâve got competition!
@WSJ With the murder of â60 Minutesâ complete, the new CBS has transitioned into the âConservative Broadcasting System.â Look out Fox, youâve got competition!
The EB concludes, âThe best outcome now would be for Republicans in Congress to unite to kill it.â Acting AG Todd Blanche had indicated that Trump and his family would also be exempt from future tax audits, as a part of the slush fund deal. So, while Congress is at it, could it also add a rider to the âkill bill,â which says no president can be exempt from future tax audits? Itâs an important proviso to help stem our slide towards becoming a banana republic.
Two comments on this editorial from HWJ Jr.:
1. âMr. Bidenâs Justice Department investigated Mr. Biden himself for mishandling intelligence documents.â
Would such an investigation of Mr. Trump happen under Mr. Trumpâs Justice Department?
2. âIn 2024, his narrow victory (115,000 votes in three states would have changed the result) âŠâ
So, Trump didnât win a landslide victory in 2024?
The EBâs conclusion, âThey wonât admit it, but they both deserve outsize credit for helping Donald Trump win a second termâ sounds wistful like it regrets the outcome of the 2024 election. I donât blame the EB; Trump is turning out to be the real RINOâhis populist policies are far from what traditional conservative dogma has represented over the past several decades.
@CNBCFastMoney@tanayamacheel Welcome to the perpetual disaster! Gives new meaning to the phrase âperp walk!â Itâs what this perp is going to perpetrate as BTC grows more speculative and untethered!
I have not heard a single viable explanation from all of CNBCâs bitcoin experts as to why this digital asset has been sinking and sliding for the past year or more despite every other financial instrument - backed by tangible underlying assets - participating in some sort of recovery or run up! Iâm sorry ârage quittingâ does not qualify as an explanation for cryptoâs long winter!
@tunkuv@Mike_Pence Mike Pence sounds patriotic and righteous now that he has a book to sell. But if he were a true conservative, he would have invoked the 25th Amendment Section 4 after Jan 6, 2021, to immediately remove President Trump from office.
It was, is, and will always be âthe art of the delayâ with Iranâits negotiators could probably offer other nations a master class in how to do this. It doesnât help that President Trump has indicated that he is bored with the never-ending negotiations. Also, it has been reported that Trump berated Netanyahu over the phone for making the negotiations with Iran more difficult. Such impressions can only exacerbate the problemâIran is thus able to project to the world, an image of winning despite having lost so much in military terms. We are at a classic stalemate.
Democratsâ frustration stems from the fact the Supreme Court has had a conservative majority since 1970. Yet through the 1970s and 1980s, we had numerous cases that were decided in favor of liberal positions by so-called swing justices, such as Sandra Day OâConnor and Anthony Kennedy. Since 2006, with the appointment of Justice Alito, the Court has moved increasingly to the hard right on many seminal cases, such as Dobbs, which in 2022 overturned five decades of abortion rights.
Most critically, itâs the landmark 2024 Court rulingâin Trump v. United States, where it established that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official actionsâthat has triggered a rash of corrupt presidential behavior and executive actions, which has not only Democrats but also Americans across the political spectrum miffed. The Supreme Court has emboldened President Trump to push the envelope on executive actions causing much ANGSTâAct Now Get Sued Tomorrowâabout his conduct throughout the country. Invariably, the damage is done first and redress, if it follows, comes or could come much later!
Andy Kessler quotes Cerebrasâs CEOâs âflimsy mathâ on its IPO day, âThere are 47 million software engineers in the world. If each one uses $100,000 of tokens a year, thatâs nearly $5 trillion from just a single use case. Do that bottoms-up and you go, âHoly crap.ââ Thatâs what investors and financial institutions look forâTotal Addressable Market or TAMâin startups, which in Cerebrasâs CEOâs estimate is â47 million software engineers.â
Over 5 years ago, I had written a Medium article, âTAM â The Holy Grail Of Business â Is A Sham.â In it I had noted, âwhether one estimates TAM using a top-down, bottom-up or value-theory methodology, the heart of the problem is in âaddressable,â which is invariably a pipe dream.â And I had made a case for moving from a pie-in-the-sky âaddressableâ to a more realistic âmonetizableâ segment called Total Monetizable Market or TMM. IPO investors are welcome to read my take on TMM, which to use Andyâs references will cause no âhallucinationsâ or âred spreadsheets.â
WRM writes, âMr. Hegsethâs speech was silent on the subject on most of his audienceâs minds: the U.S.-Iran war, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz to the sea traffic on which most of the regionâs economies depend.â
Seriously? Then why did he go there? The U.S.-Iran war is doing a number on Asian economies and Hegseth didnât offer any succor to our allies in the Indo-Pacific? Letâs hope the Trump administrationâs follow-up actions speak louder than Hegsethâs words. Because China is waiting in the wings to fulfill the role of an Asian tiger, albeit a benevolent one.